


Replacements

by solrosan



Series: Queensman [7]
Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Eggsy Unwin as Merlin, Gen, Harry Hart as Arthur, Kingsman Training, Prince Eggsy Unwin, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-07
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-10-06 06:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17340593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solrosan/pseuds/solrosan
Summary: Training new field agents turns out to be one of the hardest parts about not being a field agent any more, but perhaps not for the reasons Eggsy would have thought or wanted to admit to.





	Replacements

Eggsy slammed the door close as he stepped into Harry’s office. He threw his clipboard on the table with a frustrated sound and the paper which wasn’t properly fastened flew around everywhere.

Harry didn’t even bother looking up from his tablet. “Something the matter, dear?”

“How did Merlin deal with this shit?” Eggsy said, three decibels louder than necessary. This was far from the first time he had come back from the training facilities with smoke coming out of his ears during the last month. This was the fourth group of recruits he was training and he should be used to it by now, but they were really getting under his skin this time.

“Just like that most of the time, actually,” said Harry, looking pointedly to the mess Eggsy had made. “And with a lot of whisky.”

“Well, then…” muttered Eggsy. He walked over to the cabinet where Harry kept the liquor. He poured himself an obscenely large whisky, downed half of it with a grimace, and sat down in front of Harry.

“Feeling better?”

“ _No._ ” 

“Where are they now?”

“Left them on the mat in the gym, with some luck they’ll kill each other while I’m gone.”

Harry raised his eyebrows.

“They are bloody fucking useless the lot of them! And cocky like you wouldn’t believe!”

“Pots and kettles.”

Eggsy narrowed his eyes and was about to argue, but instead he sank a little bit further down in the chair and took another gulp of whisky.

“At least I was good,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m honestly not sure any of them will get through basics.”

“Are they really that bad? Or has this something to do with Roxy?”

“No.” Eggsy sighed, rubbing his hand over his face. “I don’t know… Maybe.”

Harry got up. He took Eggsy’s glass from him and went to refill it and pour himself one. Eggsy didn’t protest. It was true that he had been hesitant to fill the Lancelot position this early, but his personal feelings on the matter didn’t mean these idiots weren’t completely incompetent. Not all groups turned out capable agents, Gawain had taken two tries to fill, since no one in the first group had passed the loyalty test.

“Do you need a break?” asked Harry when he gave Eggsy his glass back -- this one more appropriately in size.

“What? No. I’m fine.”

“I’m just asking. You’ve worked both yourself and the recruites quite hard lately.”

“I know, it’s-- I… Yeah.”

“We can put a pin in the Lancelot position if you want. If any of these poor souls survive your torment, we can offer them Tristan.”

Eggsy shook his head. “If anyone manages to shoot the puppy, they’re Lancelot. And if no one does, then we just have to find a better lot.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

“I’m not, but I want to fill this position. I owe Roxy that. Who knows how many more unimpressive groups of mouth breathers I have time to whip into shape before— Well, I owe her to be the one filling it.”

Harry frowned. “Anything I should know about your day job?”

“No, not… No.” Eggsy shook his head again. “But Tilde’s dad’s getting old. Who knows when… _when_.”

Harry nodded. He walked around the desk to sit down. Eggsy swirled the whisky in his glass rather than drink it, watching the golden liquid go round and round. He really didn’t feel like drinking more. He needed to pull himself together and go back to the gymnasium, to the unsupervised twenty-somethings that he no longer could relate to. He had become old, or so it felt. Technically, he was also still a twenty-something, but it felt like an eternity since he had written his own name on the body bag tag.

He had seven successful missions between then and now. Seven missions, four big enough to go up on the wall -- even if the wall had been destroyed before he got the chance to put up the fourth one. Nothing compared to that first one though, the one when he hadn’t even been an agent yet. The one with just him, and Merlin, and...

“I miss her,” Eggsy said, quietly. “Roxy. She… I miss her.”

“It would be strange if you didn’t,” said Harry. “Finding people to take over after a friend is one of the worst things about this job. It’s never easy. Nor should it be.”

“You know,” said Eggsy, finally looking up from the glass, “I thought following you as Galahad would be the hardest thing I’d ever do, but this, being Merlin, trying to fill _her_ shoes with one of these morons? Fucking hell, it’s brutal…”

“You did great as Galahad and you’re doing just fine as Merlin.”

“Oh, ‘just fine’? Thanks.”

“I’m still waiting on you to fix the filters in my inbox.”

“Do I look like fucking tech support to you?”

“No, you’re are a too sharp dresser for that these days.”

Eggsy rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help smiling. 

“It’s strange, really, how the Lancelot and Galahad positions have been entwined lately,” Harry mused. “I was Lancelot’s candidate once upon a time.”

“Really?” 

“Yes, horrible woman,” said Harry with an affectionate smile. “She would have loved Roxy. Not that she’d tell her, but she’d have known anyway. Then, of course, my candidate to fill that position died during training – did I ever tell you that’s the position Lee was up for?”

“No, but Merlin did.”

“Then you and Roxy went up for Lancelot and ending up filling both it and Galahad.”

“We’re cursed, aren’t we?”

“At least it feels a bit ‘full circle’ in a way.”

Eggsy emptied his second whisky and put the glass on the desk next to Harry’s with a horrible grimace. “Can I tell you something stupid? There are days when, when I don’t think they’re dead.”

Harry frowned and Eggsy felt his ears turn red.

“I mean, like, I saw you get your brains blown out, but here you are -- and don’t get me wrong, I’m so fucking glad you are. I wished for that every day you were gone, but… but it makes it hard to believe that they are really dead. Yet I’m replacing them. Not just Roxy. All of them.”

“It’s not stupid.”

“Yeah?”

“Not at all, and I’m sorry I put you through--”

“Not your fault.”

“I know, but I’m sorry all the same. I don’t think I’ve ever said that.”

Eggsy smiled weakly. “Thanks.”

They fell silent. After a while, as it started to become rather awkward, Eggsy’s eyes drifted and he wished that he hadn’t put away his glass. It was always easier to have something in your hands.

Finally, Harry cleared his throat, having finished his own whiskey. “So do you have any conjugal visits planned in the near future?”

“Stay away from my sexlife, thank you very much,” said Eggsy, laughing and feeling the tension break and leave the room with the change of topic. “But yeah, Tilde’s coming for Easter.”

“That’s not a Balcony Holiday?”

“Nope. Next one’s Fredrick’s birthday, but I don’t have to go.”

“Can you try looking a little bit less pleased with that?”

Eggsy grinned. “Why?”

”Because you said yourself that he might be dead soon.”

Eggsy dropped his smile immediately and instead glared at Harry. The death of his father-in-law was an ever-present fear in Eggsy’s life. It would be the next time his life changed dramatically and he had no way of telling if it was in a good way or not.

”I should probably get back to the imbeciles,” said Eggsy. ”I don’t _actually_ want them to kill each other.”

”You sure?”

”Not really, but I’d rather be done with this shit before Easter, since -- as you sussed out -- I have very different plans for that weekend.” Eggsy got to his feet and picked up both their glasses to bring them with him to the kitchenette on the way back. “Thanks for the whisky.”

“Always a pleasure, Merlin.”

Eggsy froze. 

“What’s wrong?” asked Harry, frowning.

“Nothing, um…” Eggsy didn’t know what to say, his ears turning red. Here he had agonied about picking a new Lancelot in Roxy’s stead, but never once had he thought about what Harry might have felt five years ago when he showed up and appointed himself Merlin. “I just. When I came back, before the shop was done… I should’ve asked. About me being Merlin and all. I’m sorry if that-- I know that you two were, that you had been… I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I should have asked.”

“It’s never bothered me to call you Merlin, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course it had to be you.” Harry smiled briefly. “You were the only living member from the old organisation with the physical and mental strength to do it.”

The admission gave them both pause. 

Harry cleared his throat and broke eye contact. “Now go find us a Lancelot so that we can start looking for someone to replace us both as Galahad.”

“Bugger off, Arthur,” said Eggsy, half-laughing. 

Harry looked mildly annoyed, but his smile crept back as he turned back to his reading. Eggsy went to gather the papers that had been scattered during his entrance. The results on the lists were still painfully mediocre, but as he fastened them to the clipboard he thought that maybe they weren’t rebuilding the old Kingsman after all. Maybe there wasn’t enough of it left to rebuild, maybe he and Harry were building something new and in that case, this might be a very good start.


End file.
